Posted
by
CmdrTaco
on Wednesday April 21, 2010 @08:36AM
from the shrouded-in-mystery dept.

roju writes "The full text of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) was released today. It differs from the earlier leaks in that the negotiating stance of each country has been scrubbed. Preliminary analysis is up at Ars, which warns that 'Several sections of the ACTA draft show that rightsholders can obtain an injunction just by showing that infringement is "imminent," even if it hasn't happened yet.'"

"Several sections of the ACTA draft show that rightsholders can obtain an injunction just by showing that infringement is "imminent," even if it hasn't happened yet."

Isn't that called "prior restraint"?

This already exists in trademark law. There are even things called Anton Piller orders (after a famous case) that allow you to seize infringing goods before you even file suit, to prevent the other side from destroying all the evidence once they get your complaint letter.

Note, in many countries, getting a preliminary injunction or a Piller order requires the plaintiff to post a pretty substantial bond. And if it turns out that the other side is doing nothing wrong, they get that bond. This prevents you

As I point out in a post below, just imagine if the judge in the SCO case used this treaty as a basis, then he could have enjoined anyone from distributing (or using) Linux that didn't already have an SCO license. It *was* specifically a copyright issue, just like this treaty covers.

As I point out in a post below, just imagine if the judge in the SCO case used this treaty as a basis, then he could have enjoined anyone from distributing (or using) Linux that didn't already have an SCO license. It *was* specifically a copyright issue, just like this treaty covers.

Yes, and? The judge in the SCO case had that ability already. The treaty doesn't require judges to issue injunctions, and they're still appealable. All the treaty requires is that judges have the power to issue injunctions. This basically forces some countries that have weak judicial powers to beef up them up.

Prior restraint is something that is looked down upon in our judicial system, something that should only be used in the most extreme cases, and with damn good cause and serious consequences without the restraint. This treaty gives another point of authority for it, and justifies it under more moderate situations. MPAA/RIAA's life or liberty is not being threatened when someone infringes (so sue them), but when someone is restrained in this fashion, all too often their liberty is.

In the SCO case (and other potential future cases), prior restraint would have caused havok and great financial burden on many, many people, and in the end, the company/person making the claim LOST the case. Prior restraint can (and will) be used, not to prevent loss, but simply to put a chilling effect on free speech and fair use.

You are correct, we can already use prior restraint in the US where it is appropriate, and it is already abused enough as it is. The countries that don't, that is their decision. Make it easier to use it is NOT "a good thing", particularly for free speech.

Thanks for that. Some very good info on Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] of all places. In case anyone wants the highlights:

Judicial viewPrior restraint is often considered a particularly oppressive form of censorship in Anglo-American jurisprudence because it prevents the restricted material from being heard or distributed at all. Other forms of restrictions on expression (such as suits for libel, slander, defamation, or actions for criminal libel) generally involve punishment only after the offending material has been published. While such punishment might lead to a chilling effect, legal commentators argue that at least such actions do not directly impoverish the marketplace of ideas. Prior restraint, on the other hand, takes an idea or material completely out of the marketplace. Thus it is often considered to be the most extreme form of censorship. The United States Supreme Court expressed this view in Nebraska Press Assn. v. Stuart by noting:" The thread running through all these cases is that prior restraints on speech and publication are the most serious and the least tolerable infringement on First Amendment rights. A criminal penalty or a judgment in a defamation case is subject to the whole panoply of protections afforded by deferring the impact of the judgment until all avenues of appellate review have been exhausted. Only after judgment has become final, correct or otherwise, does the law's sanction become fully operative."A prior restraint, by contrast and by definition, has an immediate and irreversible sanction. If it can be said that a threat of criminal or civil sanctions after publication 'chills' speech, prior restraint 'freezes' it at least for the time."Also, most of the early struggles for freedom of the press were against forms of prior restraint. Thus prior restraint came to be looked upon with a particular horror, and Anglo-American courts became particularly unwilling to approve it, when they might approve other forms of press restriction.

Thus prior restraint came to be looked upon with a particular horror, and Anglo-American courts became particularly unwilling to approve it, when they might approve other forms of press restriction.

It's safe to say those days are long gone. The courts care far more about order and the rights of corporations now. Rights for individuals are ignored as they aren't needed to protect the rights of the powerful, who act through corporations.

Absolutely everyone I know should be restrained because they are guilty of this "imminent copyright infringement". At least over 90% of the people i've ever known has at least once in their lives done any of the following:
- Downloaded copyrighted material
- Watched copyrighted material on Youtube
- Heard a copyrighted song 'performance'
- Got a copied CD (or tape) from a friend

Anyone who has not done any of the above (or equivalent) is either well over 80 and only has a record player, or they *will* infr

No. Prior restraint is related to original publication. I.e., "Censorship that requires a person to seek governmental permission in the form of a license or imprimatur before publishing anything constitutes prior restraint every time permission is denied."

The key word here is censorship. The govt cannot stop the original work from being published, but it can stop someone else from stealing revenue from the author. If the person who published the original work had to get permission to do so, that's pri

And my SCO analogy demonstrates it *CAN* be. This would make it easier to use an injunction as a defensive corporate tool against other companies, by claiming they are infringing on your copyright. Linus might get an injunction against Linksys (or Tivo) because they didn't publish their source code (thus, a copyright infringement), SCO against all Linux distributors, etc.

Freedom of speech doesn't imply the freedom to publish - or threaten to publish - someone else's work without their permission.

Freedom of speech does not only imply that, it expressly allows that, by its very name. If there are restrictions on freedom of speech, it is not freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is nonexistant in any current society, and for good reason IMO. This weird definition of "freedom of speech" that some people have that has loads of caveats is not freedom of speech, it's purely de

How do you sue someone for "potential infringement"? This says they can be enjoined before they actually infringe anything. This is stomping over someone to make sure they don't do something that violates a copyright. Why not take away every teenagers computer, to prevent them from pirating in the first place?

What if you take their computer and they don't infringe? Do you have to go to jail for stealing a computer?

The second question is: If you're about to take away a computer from an adolestent because he's going to infringe, but, as he then won't be able to, you're just going to steal a computer; can we put you in jail, knowing that once there you won't be able to take the computer away from the adolescent?

However, the real question for the truly enlightened is: If we do jail you because you were thinking abou

What if you take their computer and they don't infringe? Do you have to go to jail for stealing a computer?

That's why these provisions are almost never used except in trademark infringement cases. If you seize someones truckload of counterfeit Prada shoes, you know that you didn't just steal a load of legitimate shoes, so you're not worried about a lawsuit for conversion or unfair competition.

What a lot of people in this thread don't realize is that, for better or for worse, nearly everything mentioned in ACTA already exists in US law. ACTA, like most of the treaties we have a hand in writing, is more of a way

More dangerous is the definition of what is or is not significant copyright infringement, especially when it is linked to "no direct or indirect motivation of financial gain", using P2P would be considered significant due to the number of people the infringing content is made available to and hence a criminal not a civil offence, which is their obvious intent. Now add seizure of assets "any related materials and implements used in the commission of the alleged offence", which of course could not only includes the computer but the house within which the computer was housed.

To rub salt into the wound, "Parties shall put in place a special allocation Fund to finance ACTA initiatives on capacity building and technical assistance", they expect the tax payer to pay for it all, including the cost of forcing it on "developing countries" (I would assume those a countries rich in primary resources and exploitable labour).

Imminent infringement clauses are nothing new, and are mostly used in the commercial realm. Say, for example, that A holds a patent on stuff X, B advertises product Y which clearly infringes on that patent. A does not need to wait until B actually starts production and therefore infringes on the patent, but can slap B with an injunction right away. Nothing new here, folks.

Think about the SCO case: Perhaps SCO should have gotten an injuction to prevent anyone from distributing any version of Linux while the courts figured it all out. After all, they were claiming copyright infringement, exactly the type that would be covered in this treaty. SCO even brought the case to full fruition. This is 100% the type of case that can be subject to being enjoined. Imagine if that happened, and the judge decided that everyone that didn't have an SCO license also needed to take their Linux servers down for infringment.

The answer is to NOT have prior restraint, and sue for damages later if that is the case.

Well, obviously, this is an extreme case and would be bad indeed, I completely agree. I just wanted to point out that it is not a generally new thing. I gotta read the actual document when I got time, but what I got from the previously leaked drafts did not look that bad. I work in patent law, under a relatively sane patent system, and here it is mostly the other way around. If A gets hit by an injunction or sued for infringement, he can put it on hold by filing a countersuit questioning the validity of the

You can't, but in the UK you can already ask for an injunction concerning infringement which hasn't happened yet (including ongoing infringement). I'd be surprised if you couldn't elsewhere, too.

This says they can be enjoined before they actually infringe anything. This is stomping over someone to make sure they don't do something that violates a copyright.

It's a court declaring that a person should not do something because the court says it would infringe copyright. That's not (inherently) stomping, it's saying 'don't do the specific thing we have good reason to believe you're likely to do, because we think it's illegal'. Think of, say, a software publisher being

201001 acta.pdf as text [swpat.org] - this is the complete leak of the January text. It's still useful because it has each proposal tagged with the country that proposed it. These tags have been scrubbed in today's official version.

ACTA-6437-10.pdf as text [swpat.org] - this is slightly incomplete, but in addition it contains comments from the EU negotiator.

In the USA, simply conspiring isn't illegal unless you have also performed at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement [wikipedia.org]. Few people are ever punished for simple conspiracy, unless the final act has been done. In most convictions, there is only enough evidence to convince the lesser participants of conspiring (buying the gun, driving the getaway car) and not doing the actual act (murder, robbery). Even with terrorism and paranoia that follows, people have generally had to have shown they bought

In the USA, simply conspiring isn't illegal unless you have also performed at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement [wikipedia.org]. Few people are ever punished for simple conspiracy, unless the final act has been done. In most convictions, there is only enough evidence to convince the lesser participants of conspiring (buying the gun, driving the getaway car) and not doing the actual act (murder, robbery). Even with terrorism and paranoia that follows, people have generally had to have shown they bought the fuel oil and fertilizer (or equivalent deed) to get a conviction. There are obviously exceptions, but they are more rare than mystery novels would have you believe.

Actually, if you read the Wikipedia article it says that the Supreme Court has ruled 'common law did not require proof of an overt step, and the need to prove it for a federal conspiracy conviction requires Congress to specifically require proof of an overt step to accomplish the conspiracy. It is a legislative choice on a statute by statute basis.', and indeed several statutes have been ruled to not require overt step.

Also: 'Conspiracy law usually does not require proof of specific intent by the defendants

There you hit the nail on the head. Once the US moved to a privatize prison system, we ended up with an economic incentive to increase crime while at the same time jacking up penalties for increasingly trivial non-white collar crime. We also now have a whole industry related to shipping, importing, exporting and warehousing prisoners across state lines and even from one region of the country to the next.

As I understand it, you can only get an ASBO *after* you've engaged in delinquency. So if you keep doing lots of stupid little things that won't always result in prosecution, they can sort of lump them all together and then slap you with an ASBO. It's retroactive punishment for minor offenses, with the intent of reducing further offenses. More like probation than pre-crime.

As I understand it, you can only get an ASBO *after* you've engaged in delinquency. So if you keep doing lots of stupid little things that won't always result in prosecution, they can sort of lump them all together and then slap you with an ASBO. It's retroactive punishment for minor offenses, with the intent of reducing further offenses. More like probation than pre-crime.

From Wikipedia:

An Anti-Social Behaviour Order ASBO (pronounced/æzbo/) is a civil order made against a person who has been shown,

Since the majority of us have very little control over this, for various reasons, if this is going to pass or not is mostly up to those negotiating it, not our public uproar. That being said, I'm at the point where I think that the future of the net will be a very divisive one, where most of the sheeple are herded around to only a few pastures, but the hackers among us will find increasingly clever and more numerous ways to farther decentralize, encrypt, and generally help privacy. I'm not for ACTA, but I'm

But instead of building the future, so much brilliant minds are busy correcting the present. I do not find this acceptable or desirable. Yes, this might lead to a friendly clique taking power, so what ? Couldn't we go forward without it ?

Orlowski, the author, used to be a really interesting, insightful and entertaining journalist a few years ago, but at somne point he strayed over the guide rails and wandered off into the land of peurile labels and trolling where he transformed into Orlowski the Insult Comic Tech Journalist (where he is the joke rather than the joke-maker). Shame - when he makes the effort to not rely on such easy angles, and tries to be fair, he's still capable of very good writing. (Many of his articles at the Register do

Yes, but Andrew Orlowski is an idiot with a massive hard-on for the creative industries and a disklike of anything created by us plebs (like Wikipedia) - just read his back-catalog to see some of his rants again the "freetards".

[...]ACTA is plurilateral, and voluntary[...]

Purely voluntary for the governments who are currently negotiating it and have gone to great lengths to conceal its details from their voting public you mean?

In a court of law, as a defendant, they may say the burden of proof is on the prosecution. When in fact, you have to prove your innocence. I don't like it, but that's the way things really are.

Also, if you don't like someone, all you have to do is accuse them of something like copyright infringement and that could equate to instant financial ruin from having to pay attorneys and court costs. EVEN IF THERE IS NO PROOF

What I would like to see is someone anonymously accuse a phantom of copyright infringement a

Theres only 6 billion citizens, if 100,000 of them commit "Copyright Infringement" we must punish the masses.

If you don't like it, you've got the 100,000 to blame. New topic; the monthly shipment of soap and socks has arrived. Collect your soap and socks, then it's lights out at 21:00, ladies. We've got a twenty mile hike at 05:00.

Only around 50% of the US has access to high-speed Internet connections in their homes. Pirating at the library doesn't really work so good. You can believe that with 165 million potential pirates that at least 50 million of them are actively pirating media, mostly music.

I don't think I know anyone that would ever pay a dime for music ever again. Movies are on their way out as something to pay for as well, but NetFlix is pretty cheap still.

ACTA doesn't export all of US law in this area, though; the world doesn't get huge principles like fair use (which many countries don't have) and key judicial decisions (like the Sony Betamax case which found that a device with "substantial non-infringing uses" could be sold so long as the manufacturer was not inducing infringement). Countries could adopt these, but they aren't requirements.

square with this blurb towards the beginning of the article:

ACTA would ban "the unauthorized circumvention of an effective technological measure." It also bans circumvention devices, even those with a "limited commercially significant purpose." Countries can set limits to the ban, but only insofar as they do not "impair the adequacy of legal protection of those measures." This is ambiguous, but allowing circumvention in cases where the final use is fair would appear to be outlawed.

To me, the second blurb is pretty much saying "kiss your fair use goodbye, US Citizens"

ACTA doesn't export all of US law in this area, though; the world doesn't get huge principles like fair use (which many countries don't have) and key judicial decisions (like the Sony Betamax case which found that a device with "substantial non-infringing uses" could be sold so long as the manufacturer was not inducing infringement). Countries could adopt these, but they aren't requirements.

square with this blurb towards the beginning of the article:

ACTA would ban "the unauthorized circumvention of an effective technological measure." It also bans circumvention devices, even those with a "limited commercially significant purpose." Countries can set limits to the ban, but only insofar as they do not "impair the adequacy of legal protection of those measures." This is ambiguous, but allowing circumvention in cases where the final use is fair would appear to be outlawed.

To me, the second blurb is pretty much saying "kiss your fair use goodbye, US Citizens"

Nope, that's exactly how the law works right now. It's basically a rephrasing of the DMCA. Under current US copyright law, you are allowed to make a backup copy of a DVD for your own personal use. But, under the DMCA, you can't trade DeCSS. The argument "but DeCSS has substantial non-infringing uses, like backups and playing DVDs under Linux," doesn't work because the DMCA specifically bans circumvention measures, regardless of their non-infringing uses.

ACTA would ban "the unauthorized circumvention of an effective technological measure."

Under ACTA, you can't write and/or use a DeCSS equivalent? That's worse than DMCA's non-distribution limitation.

No, it isn't. I think you're misreading the DMCA:
ACTA:

Each Party shall provide for adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies, in the form of civil remedies or criminal penalties in appropriate cases of willful conduct, against the circumvention of effective technological measures that are used by authors, performers or producers or phonograms in connection with the exercise of their rights and that restrict unauthorized acts in respect of their works, performances, and phonogram. These shall apply to:
(b) the manufacture, importation, or circulation of a technology, service, device, product, component, or part thereof, that is: marketed or primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing an effective technological measure; or that has only a limited commercially significant purpose or use other than circumventing an effective technological measure.

"Oh, no, it bans manufacture, not just importation and distribution! That's much worse than the DMCA!"

DMCA sec 1201(a)(2)

No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that--
`(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; [or]
`(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title

DMCA bans manufacture, too.

I think the point you're getting at is that the DMCA isn't applied to people who code their own DeCSS equivalent but don't distribute, because then they're not engaging in interstate commerce and federal law doesn't apply. ACTA, if enacted, is also federal law, and similarly wouldn't apply to personal manu

Who defines "effective?" I guarantee that it won't be you or me. It'll be the media companies. It won't matter how useless the measure really is, they'll push the courts to rule that that it is effective. It'll be circular reasoning. You can't legally use the tool to break it because the encryption's effective. It is effective because there's no legal tool to break it.

"the unauthorized circumvention of an effective technological measure."

Common sense: If the measure can be circumvented, it is not effective. If it enforces something else than copyright (for instance, by disallowing fair use), it is not effective. In other words: this rule never applies.

"Each party shall provide that its judicial authorities shall have the authority at the request of the applicant, to issue an interlocutory injunction intended to prevent any imminent infringement of an intellectual property right [copyright or related rights or trademark]. An interlocutory injunction may also be issued, under the same conditions, against an [infringing] intermediary whose services are being used by a third party to infringe an intellectual property right. Each party shall also provide th

"Each party shall provide that its judicial authorities shall have the authority at the request of the applicant, to issue an interlocutory injunction intended to prevent any imminent infringement of an intellectual property right [copyright or related rights or trademark]. An interlocutory injunction may also be issued, under the same conditions, against an [infringing] intermediary whose services are being used by a third party to infringe an intellectual property right. Each party shall also provide that provisional measures may be issued, even before the commencement of proceedings on the merits, to preserve relevant evidence in respect of the alleged infringement. Such measures may include inter alia the detailed description, the taking of samples or the physical seizure of documents or of the infringing goods."

Um...What?

"Each party" - each signatory country to the treaty
"shall" - must
"provide that its judicial authorities shall have the authority at the request of the applicant, to issue an interlocutory injunction" - give its judges the power to, at a copyright/trademark/patent owner's request, issue a preliminary injunction. The judges do not have to issue the injunction, but they must have the power to do so.
"to prevent any imminent infringement of an intellectual property right [copyright or related rights or trade

Careful, this is slashdot. Informed reading of legal code will drown in the "they gotta seize all computers", "precrime-nazi" and "using the net will be illegal" - spam. In general I didn't find much in the leaked drafts that was out of the ordinary compared to current IP law.

Careful, this is slashdot. Informed reading of legal code will drown in the "they gotta seize all computers", "precrime-nazi" and "using the net will be illegal" - spam. In general I didn't find much in the leaked drafts that was out of the ordinary compared to current IP law.

True enough.
My reading is that it pretty closely mirrors the Paris Convention, with some additional changes based loosely on the DMCA and some modern trademark law. Essentially, this won't change US law much, if at all, while it may significantly change IP law in Mexico, South America, China, etc.

"Each party shall provide that its judicial authorities shall have the authority at the request of the applicant, to issue an interlocutory injunction intended to prevent any imminent infringement of an intellectual property right [copyright or related rights or trademark]. An interlocutory injunction may also be issued, under the same conditions, against an [infringing] intermediary whose services are being used by a third party to infringe an intellectual property right. Each party shall also provide that provisional measures may be issued, even before the commencement of proceedings on the merits, to preserve relevant evidence in respect of the alleged infringement. Such measures may include inter alia the detailed description, the taking of samples or the physical seizure of documents or of the infringing goods." Um...What?

Any countries signing the treaty agree to make laws so their police forces must seize any goods that *AA thinks might possibly be imminently infringing. ? I am not a lawyer.

It's precrime + Nazi laws that can lead to lockup just for being some who want to speak up as a law like that can make easy to cut off any one who may even thing about trying to say something bad about some on in power.

At least the constitution does not let stuff like that happen.

But in places like china they can then just use the ACTA to get a way with it.

Countries negotiate away our rights with impunity, the reason they get away with it being that citizens -- myself included -- have neither the guts nor the means to stage an armed uprising against today's leading governments and often have no clue what's going on anyway. Is there any hope for freedom in a world where the powerful conspire to restrict it against the best interests of the people?

the reason they get away with it being that citizens -- myself included -- have neither the guts nor the means to stage an armed uprising against today's leading governments

Living conditions have to get pretty shitty before we start thinking it's worth getting our heads blown off. Much, much shittier than this. However sadly you are right - every time the government makes a law, it takes away a little bit more of your rights. The world today is vastly different (and more restrictive) t

Is there any hope for freedom in a world where the powerful conspire to restrict it against the best interests of the people?

Well, this isn't the first time the world's been in this situation. For reference, please see the British Empire, French Empire, Roman Empire, Japanese Empire, German Empire, Aztec Empire, Inca Empire....and so on.

Of course, all of those came crashing down eventually. However, the combined circumstances that brought about such demises were neither pretty, nor easy to live through. There was blood. There was starvation. There was disease. There was death. So that's a good point to keep in mind as well.

not by artists, but by an entrenched oligopoly of a dying distribution network (replaced by the internet)

the proper response to this declaration of war is not via legal means. all legal means have been corrupted bought and sold by entrenched corporate interests

the proper response is complete subversion of all media on the internet

we can't beat them in the legal arena. not because our legal arguments are inferior. indeed, they are superior. but we can't compete on the same playing field in terms of financial influence over our legislative bodies

so we will instead starve these assholes to death by destroying all of their sources of income: complete ubiquity of their media on the internet, free and higher quality (no DRM) than their locked up bullshit that only punishes the common man (it certainly doesn't punish pirates)

let the war being: tens of millions of poor, technological sophisticated, and media hungry teenagers versus a couple thousand lawyers

it's going to be a rout and we're going to win this war, by destroying these corporate interest that impoverish our culture and imperil our rights and freedoms by draining their finances

it is no longer good enough to merely ignore this bullshit. it is incumbent upon anyone with a sense of morality to outright destroy media corporations for the crimes they are inflicting on our cultures

If you believe the "right to consume" overrules all, then yes, this is a declaration of war.

The fact that it is now possible to make sure that one copy of any work release digitally (software, movie, book, music, etc.) is sold and everyone on the planet with an Internet connection has it for free. No Internet today clearly equals no right to pirate, no right to consume.

Personally, I think the only solution for this to not have ACTA, not have any copyright enforcement and push everyone to the model where it

oh sure, the internet killed the dvd, but from the 1950s through the 2010s, people have been going to the movies to constantly growing profits

watching iron man 2 on your 17 inch monitor in your basement by yourself just doesn't compare, even with all the crying babies and cellphones. and even on your 60 inch hd lcd with 5.1 dolby: you're by yourself. oh you have your fire

I give it two weeks before we start seeing junk all over the net, possibly even here, along the lines of "ACTA not as bad as previously thought" or "why ACTA could actually save OSS" or other completely ripe horseshit like that. Hopefully everyone is smart enough to realize that's just the shills outing themselves, but they won't be.

I give it two weeks before we start seeing junk all over the net, possibly even here, along the lines of "ACTA not as bad as previously thought" or "why ACTA could actually save OSS" or other completely ripe horseshit like that.

I'll give it 2 months before all the US politicians start abandoning it. They've collected their back-room bribes for supporting what industry wanted, but now they have an election to face. Let the online media make some scare stories, then the politicians will tell industry that "the timing's wrong" just now.

Hopefully everyone is smart enough to realize that's just the shills outing themselves, but they won't be. Hate this fuckin' planet so hard. Let me off.

The whole treaty smells of desperation and fear. The Trad whiteshirts must be seeing their careers in copyright law dissolving in the next 5 years. Copyright law is going to end up as a red flag career http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_flag_laws [wikipedia.org] unless IP is engaged with in modern frameworks. Not that I will cry any tears for the copyright crocodiles.

... is the notion that unless the publisher of a work explicitly sanctions a particular copying method, in particular for something like private use, then it is essentially illegal to do (bear in mind that "effective technological measure" does not require that the copy protection mechanism literally *BE* effective at preventing copies from being made, it only has to have been some measure put there by the copyright holder for the purposes of preventing copies, whether or not is is still otherwise easy or convenient to do).

Now while some supporters of the notion might not see any particular reason for a person to need to circumvent copy protection for their own private use, when a publisher might choose to actively support it anyways, it actually ends up creating a situation where, for example, the publisher might be perfectly okay with you copying that movie to your iPad (presumably for your own private use), but when new technology comes out in a few years that doesn't happen to be all that compatible with the iPad, unless the company has had the resources to invest in keeping up with changes in technology for the purposes of utilizing their older material, a person is left being locked into only dealing with Apple stuff -- they cannot legally transfer their already purchased material to any entirely new device of a similar purpose that they might happen to acquire over time. In addition to almost openly serving the agenda of big businesses while strangle-holding the little guy, it creates a situation that, however inadvertent, ends up directing what sort of technologies can be legally developed in the future. It is my contention that ANY law that does this sort of thing is, regardless of how it might be intended to be used, a bad law, and should be stricken or completely redrafted so that this situation does not ever arise. At the very least, devices themselves that can circumvent copy protection without requiring sanctioning of the copyright holder should not be illegal. At most all that should be illegal is the act of a person that uses such a device to infringe on copyright (but here's the funny thing, with that provision, then they are already breaking a law, so outlawing circumvention serves no real purpose).

"Several sections of the ACTA draft show that rightsholders can obtain an injunction just by showing that infringement is 'imminent,' even if it hasn't happened yet"

This is exactly what you would expect when only one party (Big Media) has any true input into a law. It seems the rightsholders get an injunction if they make a argument that infringement might happen.

Could this injunction end up as one of the 3 strikes the poor consumers have? If so a consumer who had downloaded something before could get anoth

You can use that document, you get your “representative” into pound-me-in-the-ass prison for treason. And the fact that the whole thing was kept secret shows that it was (...how do you call that in English?...) wanton treason (?).

At least in Germany, you get the maximum punishment for this, similar to murder, rape, etc.

Now remember: If you are not doing anything against this, you show that you are OK with it, and let them continue on that path. Especially if you use the invalid (because of circu

after debating whether I should go legal and pay SOCAN the licensing fees for restarting my non commercial shoutcast station I decided to switch to all Creative Commons licensed music. Its taken a while to download enough quality music and listen through it and weed out the "experimental" stuff. I've also had to change my music format but in doing so I also discovered other genres that I never bothered looking at. So far its been a win win situation and I've already donated some money to a netlabel, except

I searched the entire document for "fair use" and came up with only one entry, footnote 47:

"[For greater certainty, the Parties understand that third party liability means liability for any person who authorizes for a direct financial benefit, induces through or by conduct directed to promoting infringement, or knowingly and materially aids any act of copyright or related rights infringement by another. Further, the Parties also understand that the application of third party liability may include consideration of exceptions or limitations to exclusive rights that are confined to certain special cases that do not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work, performance or phonogram, and do not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the right holder, including fair use, fair dealing, or their equivalents.] At least one delegation opposes this footnote."

I wonder which delegation(s) that is (are)? If footnote 47, or some equivalent, does not appear in the final version, would we have a conflict between ACTA and 17 USC?

I think the concept of "fair use" and its exceptions to copyright law are pretty much a US concept alone. Other countries have things somewhat similar but with different specifics.

This would (of course) be implemented as a treaty which would be considered to override any existing law in the US. Pretty much the same as WTO overrides any "protectionism" that might benefit US workers.

It differs from the earlier leaks in that the negotiating stance of each country has been scrubbed.

That way, each country's leader could blame the more draconian provisions on the other countries, and thus no one is to blame. You see this in organizational politics too: when it's unpleasant, make it from the committee rather than from the people in the committee.

1. Create any work (it's automatically copyrighted)2. Sue EVERYONE for imminent infringement3. Judge wonders what kind of proof you'd have of imminent infringement by everybody4. Judge further considers the kind of damages you'd be entitled to for a work that's not being sold anywhere, that nobody has heard about, and of which only you have access to a copy5. ????6. Profit!

Ah, but they have their own permission to cause the imminent infringement of their own copyright!

Seriously though, the courts aren't that stupid. The words themselves aren't the law, but the well-established meanings behind them. So, taking a word like "imminent" and hyperbolically extending it to mean "probable; sometime in the next century or two" does not alone mean the law is ripe for abuse. The courts can tell the difference between between two vastly different applications of the word "imminent".

Why would a film studio seek an injunction against a cinema to stop it showing a film when the studio has just agreed to accept money from the cinema in exchange for being allowed to show it? Why would a court be so stupid as to issue an injunction if they did?